


Funhouse Mirror

by emmaliza



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Attempted Seduction, Episode: s04e11 Orbit, Episode: s04e12 Warlord, M/M, avon is a wreck, gone horribly wrong, role play, sanity slippage, tarrant makes bad decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:54:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22946629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaliza/pseuds/emmaliza
Summary: Tarrant thinks that if Avon wants Blake so badly, he might as well give him Blake. It goes wrong.
Relationships: Kerr Avon/Del Tarrant, Kerr Avon/Roj Blake
Comments: 10
Kudos: 10





	Funhouse Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> So this was originally inspired by a kinkmeme prompt: "Avon/Tarrant series 3. Tarrant decides he needs to roleplay as Blake in order to get Avon interested. Unfortunately he's never met Blake." However it wound up spinning away from that idea, most obviously by being set in series 4 (between Orbit and Warlord), and by being way less lulzy than that prompt would suggest. Take care everyone.

Scorpio remains an interminably claustrophobic environment, ever more so for having only the two of them on board. Tarrant is decidedly irritated with the specific circumstances that have left them here. The planet on which the antidote for Pylene-50 grows is just too far away to teleport to, but close enough not to be worth taking the whole crew. And it's peaceful, for now at least, meaning they don't need the others as back-up. But it's secured behind an asteroid belt, meaning Avon needs Tarrant's skills to navigate around it, so they have now spent days on the ship alone together, driving each other mad, without a single other soul for company.

For whatever it's worth, Tarrant has no delusions about why they drive each other wild so. And were he asked, he would be perfectly content to resolve that sexual tension, as pragmatically as possible, and hence clear one obstruction to their crew's proper function.

But of course, were he to simply say as much, he's sure Avon would delight in rejecting him as cruelly as he could. Nothing can ever be simple with him, can it?

"We cleared the Gamma 9 asteroid," Tarrant says, voice cool and steady despite how out of breath he is, curls plastered to his forehead with sweat. "Barely." Avon would be dead without him. He hopes Avon remembers that next time they bicker pointlessly.

Avon is not listening. He's staring out into the infinite blackness of space. He's been acting strangely for awhile - ever since he and Vila met with that professor, and Tarrant is sure something happened there, given how thoroughly they've avoided each other since (and how Vila has taken to drinking even more than usual, which really is saying something). Tarrant finds that annoying. Then, he received a message on the communicators and refused to share it with anyone - he said it was nothing, but Tarrant doesn't believe that for a second. He finds that even more annoying.

"Avon!" He snaps when he realises he's not being listened to, and Avon slowly turns around, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Do you want something?"

Tarrant is lost for words a second. _You,_ says a primitive, juvenile part of his brain. Yes, he admits it, some part of Avon's impenetrable coldness intrigues him - he craves to know what the man would be like at the height of passion. But he doubts he ever will. Either way, that is hardly the point right now.

"A thank you would be nice," he mutters sullenly, but that makes him sound no less childish.

Avon raises his other brow. "Thank you," he says, voice dripping with sarcasm, and Tarrant huffs in anger. 

"You make a terrible captain, you know that?!" Tarrant has never been good at holding his tongue when he's mad. Avon looks genuinely surprised by his outburst, but Tarrant doesn't take that as a reason to back down. Quite the opposite, in fact. "You use us and take us for granted, and can't even be bothered to give us credit for what we do! I can't imagine any other man commanding such loyalty for so little."

Alright, maybe Tarrant himself isn't the picture of loyalty. But Vila, Dayna and Soolin, they've never given Avon reason to doubt them. Or Cally, before she passed. Indeed, isn't following Avon what got her killed?

In Avon's eyes, he sees some strange flicker of recognition. De ja vu, even. "I never asked you to follow me," he murmurs, turning back around to stare at the screen, clearly seeing _something_ in the void ahead that Tarrant cannot.

"You never had to." He rises from his pilot's chair, not willing to give up when it seems like he has Avon on the ropes. "We simply came along, as I'm sure you knew we would. Remember the Liberator? We trailed you even after that. After you cost us everything, hopelessly begging after Blake-"

Tarrant gasps as his airway is suddenly cut off. Avon has a hand around his throat. "Careful, Tarrant," he growls, his face contorting into a hideous, brutal, animal grin. "You know nothing about me and Blake."

Avon lets him go and, while he's distracted looking at some computer readout or other, Tarrant struggles to keep back a grin of his own. _Oh. You and Blake, is it?_

Perhaps the sudden return of oxygen is playing havoc with his brain, but Tarrant's mind races at million spacials an hour. It's true, he doesn't know much about Avon and Blake - but he can infer from circumstance. He's long since suspected that part of the reason Avon dislikes him, Tarrant, so much is that as his chief rival for command, he reminds Avon of Blake. Now he starts to wonder if there isn't more he and Blake have in common.

Well, if he and Avon have been swimming through this swamp of sexual tension for as long as they have because of some vague resemblance, so be it. Tarrant isn't sentimental enough to be offended at the thought of being used as a replacement (at least, he isn't toward Avon). Avon wants Blake, that much has been clear since Terminal, if not earlier - and if that's what he wants, why shouldn't he have it?

It's funny. Ever since the Liberator blew up, he's not made any challenge to Avon's authority, not really. Even though one could argue that proved Avon was clearly unfit to command, it seemed to press upon Tarrant how important it was they function as a unit if they were ever to survive. And he can think of no better way to prove his loyalty, to play the gracious subordinate, than to give Avon the one thing he's always dreamed of.

* * *

Cally taught him how Blake used to dress, indirectly, when she guided him through Liberator's nigh-infinite wardrobe shortly after he came on board. "Those are Blake's shirts," she said, gesturing toward a rack of clothing. They still thought he was coming back then. _Don't touch them,_ she warned him telepathically, or perhaps that was the cold look in her eyes speaking?

Of course, the Liberator's wardrobe blew up when it did, and so Tarrant must make do with his own garments. He has a forest green blouse loose at the sleeves - he thinks it makes him look like Robin Hood, or perhaps Peter Pan (two stories from Earth's ancient history, and Tarrant struggles to remember whether they were meant to be separate characters) - but from what he's gathered, that was rather Blake's aesthetic.

Avon pauses when he enters the flight deck to see Tarrant dressed up like that. That makes him smile. Good, that's the response he was looking for. "What do you think you're doing, Tarrant?" Avon murmurs.

"Don't call me that." Tarrant pitches his voice lower than he would usually. He tries to remember what Blake sounded like on the news viz he saw years ago. He had a Celtic background, didn't he? Should he put on an accent, or would that just sound silly? "I was waiting for you. You're late. I need you with me when we make planetfall."

Avon prowls around him in a circle, like a panther. Tarrant refuses to be intimidated. Avon must know what role he's playing.

"You seem to think this is your ship," Avon says, slowly, as if he wants to give Tarrant the opportunity to back down. Tarrant has no intention of doing so.

"This is my ship," he says bluntly. "It was me who escaped a Federation prison ship. Me who seized the Liberator. Me who they've been chasing halfway across the galaxy for years. They don't call us Avon's Seven, do they?"

He's expecting Avon's anger. That's part of the plan. For him to snarl and snap, for Tarrant (or rather, _Blake_ ) to give as good as he gets, and that to lead them to rough, furious sex over the console. Somehow. So far, it seems like everything is going to plan.

What he's not expecting, however, is Avon to grab him by the hair and force him down over that console, face-first.

"How dare you?!" Avon roars with more rage than Tarrant's ever heard from him. It vibrates through his body and makes him shiver. He struggles to get away, but Avon just grabs his wrists and twists them behind his back, making him hiss in pain, one knee coming up to dig into his lower back, pinning him in place. It's not fair. He could take Avon in a fair fight, he knows he could, but now he's been caught off-guard Avon's weight and anger is too much to escape.

"You think you're him? You think you could _ever_ be him?!" Tarrant gets the distinct impression he's made a terrible mistake, and is about to open his mouth to say so when Avon yanks his wrists again, making him cry out in pain. "You are _nothing_ to me, nothing at all. You think I could ever want you? That I'll fall for your shiny teeth and curly hair?" He laughs bitterly.

Tarrant writhes helplessly as Avon starts to pull down his trousers. He wore loose ones with an elasticated waist, to match the shirt, but that makes them very easy to get rid of, even one handed, the other still keeping Tarrant's arms trapped behind his back. Tarrant knows he doesn't have any underwear on beneath. He can hardly claim Avon has misread his intentions.

"That is what you want, isn't it?" Avon's voice drops into its usual cold register, which is somehow even more frightening. Like he knows what he's doing. "Me to fuck _you_ if I can't have who I really want?" Tarrant shakes his head, although yes, that's exactly what he wanted. But not like this.

"You're nothing like him," Avon murmurs as Tarrant's trousers fall down around his ankles, and he tightens his grip on his wrists as he moves his knee down, whole body leaning over him instead. "You think I would do this to him? You think I would _dare_?"

Tarrant bites his lip not to whimper. _Well maybe that's why he left,_ he wants to snark back, but it hardly seems likely to help the situation.

Avon's breath is hot against against his neck, and he laughs cruelly in his ear. "But I suppose I can give you what you want, if it means that much to you. After all, you did go to such an effort to seduce me."

Pointedly, he drives his crotch against Tarrant's arse, black leather sticking to his bare skin. The gesture is more one of intimidation than lust - Avon isn't even aroused. That's a relief, but it's also humiliating. Avon really does think nothing of him, then. But Tarrant's sure he's clever enough to think of something to do with him regardless.

_He's not going to go through with it, he just wants to scare me. He's not that sort of man._ Tarrant tries to reassure himself, but he's not sure he can take that risk. The sound of Dr. Plaxton's scream, the sight of Anna Grant's body, and even Vila's terrified expression these past few weeks all run through his head. In truth, he has no idea what Avon is capable of, when pushed.

He knows there's no-one he can scream for help from - except Slave, and would Slave help? Could Slave help? Tarrant knows he ought to be able to escape on his own, but he can't seem to get away...

One of Avon's hands moves, stroking Tarrant's hip gently, almost romantically, before his soft fingers delve into the crack of his arse. "Well, is that what you want? Me to fuck you hard and call his name? To get out all my need?"

Tarrant closes his eyes. He thinks of Dayna, when they were on Ultraworld, and what they tried to make them do - he didn't particularly want to, at least not like that, but it was alright, because it was Dayna and he trusted her, and she him, and they both knew that if they really had to go through with it, neither of them would do anything to hurt each other.

He even thinks of Servalan. She's an evil woman, he knows that, but she didn't wound him beyond a few bites to his neck and scratchmarks on his chest. Those were nice. He trusts Avon right now less than he trusted her, and under other circumstances, that might be funny.

Avon's thumb presses briefly against the rim of his hole, and the gesture breaks him. His pride abandons him. He sobs.

"No," his voice sounds hollow and broken, nothing like himself or Blake. "Please, no. I was just being stupid. I'm sorry. I don't want it, not like this. Please, Avon, don't..."

There's a pause. Slowly, Tarrant feels Avon's hands let him go, his body stop looming over him. He shudders with relief.

"He would never have begged me like that."

When Tarrant stands up and turns to face him, Avon seems horrified by what he's just done. His hands are shaking. He looks a decade older. _Good,_ Tarrant thinks spitefully. 

"Neither would I," he retorts automatically, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary. Avon doesn't even bother to argue with him, he simply staggers over to the front seat, staring back into the yawning blackness of space.

Tarrant doesn't care what he does. Hurriedly he pulls up his trousers, covering himself before wiping the tears from his eyes. He has to get a hold of himself, but he's still shaking. He always thought he and Avon had a relationship of equals, more or less, with some level of mutual respect beneath the constant antipathy. The fact Avon told him he was nothing, that it was so easy for him to force Tarrant down and keep him there, that Avon only stopped because Tarrant begged for mercy and that made him think better of it - it all leaves him feeling shattered, in more ways than one.

_The others can never know about this,_ he decides. Not for Avon's sake, mind you - but he knows that, if they knew what happened, they could never respect him again. And he needs that. He needs their respect.

This stupid billowing shirt clings to his body with cold sweat, and Tarrant makes for the door, needing a shower, a change of clothes and, in all honesty, a good cry. He can't do any of those things with Avon here.

But it's not that simple, not like it was on Liberator, where they could all storm off the flight deck at the drop of a hat (and usually did). "Avon," he just about manages to keep his voice steady, "could you re-pressurise the rest of the ship?"

Silence, and Tarrant thinks Avon must not have heard him. But eventually he gives an almost imperceptible nod, and presses the button to start the process.

It takes about three minutes, which Tarrant spends crawling out of his skin. He just wants to get out of here. Still, when the door finally slides open, he hesitates.

He turns around again to see Avon, still slumped in his chair, face now buried in his hands. He must have assumed Tarrant's already gone. _Or maybe he's forgotten about me entirely._ "I just need to find him again," he murmurs.

There's no point wondering who he's talking about. Well, Tarrant hopes he does find his Blake - for all their sakes.


End file.
